Free Republic

New details of Moscow's intelligence work in Cuba were disclosed by Vasili Mitrokhin, a former KGB archivist who defected to Britain in 1992. ...Russian KGB officer Nikolai Leonov became "firm friends," with Mr. Castro's younger brother Raul in Prague in 1953 and then worked together with Fidel from 1956 and after he took power in 1959. The book, the second volume of what is known as the Mitrokhin archive, also reveals how Moscow sought to indirectly defeat the United States during the Cold War through large-scale "disinformation" and influence operations in the developing world. "The KGB really believed they could...

Alexei Leonov, a Soviet-era cosmonaut who was the first human to conduct a spacewalk in 1965, died Friday in Moscow aged 85, his assistant said. "He died today in Moscow at the Burdenko hospital after a long illness," Natalia Filimonova told AFP. The Russian space agency Roscosmos said it was saddened to announce the death of "cosmonaut No 11" who was twice decorated with the country's top honor, the Hero of the Soviet Union.

Minutes after he stepped into space, Leonov realised his suit had inflated like a balloon, preventing him from getting back inside. Later on, the cosmonauts narrowly avoided being obliterated in a huge fireball when oxygen levels soared inside the craft. And on the way back to Earth, the crew was exposed to enormous G-forces, landing hundreds of kilometres off target in a remote corner of Siberia populated by wolves and bears. Afterwards, the Soviet authorities revealed nothing about the problems. For years, few people knew the truth.

World champion in kick-boxing Nikolay Leonov was among supporters of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic who died in the fight for the Donetsk airport on 26 May, co-chairman of the People's Front of Donbass Vladimir Rogov told RIA Novosti. Leonov's body was identified on Friday and taken to his native city of Dnepropetrovsk. Nikolay Leonov, aged 31, won the World Cup in full contact karate in Odessa in 2005. In 2007 he became the IAKSA and WTKA world champion in kick-boxing in Marina di Carrara, Italy. He achieved the norm of world-class athlete and worked as a training manager. Leonov...